by David Stone

Our guests had gone home, hours ago.
Dishes done, drying on the rack,
you lounged in one of our old chairs, 
reading God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
A lamp hung a lemon umbrella above you.


Across the room, I sunk into Robert Lowell,
interrupting you all the time
to read out loud verses that stung me.
Rimsky-Korsakoff met
the rustle of summer at our window.


It was one, two, three, four a.m....
You started to say something.


If there was one thing more
in the world worth living for,
I didn’t know it.

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Unequal Bargains

The Screen We Could Not See

Eleanor Rivers Jul 17, 2026

On June 18, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation’s Real Estate Development Advisory Committee gathered to discuss ground leases, the master retail lease, and the ten additional years being offered under the Island’s master lease. Howard L. Polivy, the committee’s chair, opened the meeting as a longtime host shows guests through a familiar house, pointing out the furniture as if it had never moved an inch.

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